New York, United States, February 2026 — TZP Group has announced the appointment of Ketan Patel as Managing Director, Chief Talent Officer, marking a significant addition to the firm’s leadership as it continues to scale its investment platform and talent capabilities across its portfolio.
In his new role, Ketan Patel will lead TZP’s talent strategy, strengthening leadership hiring, organizational capability building, and human capital priorities across portfolio companies. His appointment aligns with TZP’s continued focus on building proprietary platform capabilities and long-term value creation through operational and leadership excellence.
In his new position as Managing Director, Chief Talent Officer at TZP Group, Ketan Patel brings deep expertise in talent leadership and human capital strategy developed across global consumer brands, large-scale services businesses, and high-growth organizations.
Most recently, he served as Chief Human Resources Officer at LaborFirst, where he was responsible for architecting and implementing the overall human capital plan to support the organization’s growth strategy. During this phase, he focused on aligning workforce planning, leadership capability, and talent systems to accelerate organizational performance.
Prior to LaborFirst, Ketan held a senior HR leadership position at Sysco as Head of Human Resources – U.S. Foodservice Operations, serving as Chief Human Resources Officer for Sysco’s $70+ billion foodservice businesses in the United States and Canada, supporting 50,000 colleagues. His role reflected strong depth in operating-model leadership, workforce scale management, and enterprise HR execution.
Earlier, he spent significant years at Aetna, a CVS Health Company, where he held multiple senior roles including Vice President, Human Resources, Specialty Businesses and Strategic Solutions, and Vice President, Human Resources, Medicaid. In these roles, he led HR strategy and execution for multi-billion-dollar businesses, managing large and distributed teams across the United States while supporting performance, transformation, and business growth.
Ketan also served as Vice President, Human Resources Business Partner at The Estée Lauder Companies Inc., where he supported the Global Supply Chain North America organization across the US and Canada. Before that, he held key HR leadership responsibility at Starbucks Coffee Company as Director, Partner Resources, US Business, leading HR for a major business unit supporting 15,000 employees.
He brings further depth from his long tenure at American Express, where he served as Global HR Director, Global Merchant Services, and Global HR Director, Worldwide Staff Groups, supporting globally distributed teams and leadership functions reporting directly to the Chairman and CEO. He began his foundational HR career with Unilever, serving in key HR roles including HR Manager, Brand Development and Marketing North America, HR Manager, Supply Chain North America, and an International Assignment in HR India, reflecting early exposure to global HR strategy and talent development in high-performance environments.
In addition to his corporate leadership, Ketan also contributes actively in advisory and board roles, including as Board Advisor at Executive Networks, and Advisory Board Member at Journey, Fountain, and ChangeEngine, reflecting his continued influence in leadership networks and people strategy ecosystems.
About TZP Group
Founded in 2007, TZP Group is a private equity firm focused on investments in lower-middle market Technology & Business Services and Consumer Products & Services companies in the United States and Canada. The firm has raised $1.7 billion since inception.
TZP is differentiated through three core pillars: being a Partner of Choice for entrepreneurial owners and management teams; operating as a Company, Not a Deal Shop, enabling stronger ownership and operational advisory; and building the TZP Platform with proprietary scaled capabilities and diverse strategies.
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